Sunday, November 19, 2006

Annoying Lesson From Canada

Today, the anti-gay, anti-marriage-equality dwindling band is again busing in oldsters and the literal from nine locations -- Roman Catholic churches, restaurants and strip malls. Their mini-rally to proclaim their theocratic intent shows us the same future that Canada will see.

The anti-marriage-equality forces have no intention of giving up or shutting up. Even those who cry, "Let the people vote!" don't accept defeat, not at the voting booth, not at opinion polls, not in the legislature, and not in the courts.

Here and there, we can expect more of the same. In the marriage version of Whack-A-Mole, the anti folk feign democratic concerns, but simply return from another angle after defeat. They state their position, then blithely ignore it after their losses.

This is the perseverance of the mentally deficient.

Way uptown, in Ottawa, the New York Timesreports on the Canadian version. In using religious fundies to get elected, PM Stephen Harper promised to hold a vote on revisiting the law and related structure passed in Canada. He successfully avoided it so far, apparently knowing he'd lose badly.

Even more than here, Canadians are sick of the whining and vitriol of the anti-SSM types. The election votes reflect and the public polls strongly state that SSM is the law of the land and that the Parliament needs to get on with real issues.

Oh no. The Christian right is not about to let the will of the people and the law of the land get in the way of calumny and schadenfreude. They want to punish homosexuals and have no intention of letting reality intervene.

"With the legalization of gay marriage, faith has been violated and we’ve been forced to respond," said Charles McVety, a leader of several evangelical Christian organizations that oppose gay marriage and president of the Canada Christian College in Toronto. "Traditionally people of faith in Canada have not been politically active," he said. "But now we’re finally seeing organizations that are professionalizing what was a very amateur political movement."

As in Massachusetts, those who would conflate civil contract law with religious ritual are not bothered that there are thousands on their side and millions on the other. The NYT article notes that a vote on whether even to discuss SSM again is only to appease these annoying sorts. Yet, Harper know that the vast majority of the voters -- moderates, lefties and French Canadians included -- have no desire to revisit SSM and that pushing to do so could well mean the end of his government.

As a hint of what they and we can expect, underlying the SSM strife is the big issue of how powerful, or limited, the fundies are.

"Let’s say there’s a vote and the issue dissipates from the agenda in the same way abortion has faded away," Mr. Malloy said. "Then they won’t have a clear-cut issue they can strongly organize on. They’re developing a base here but they need something to organize and keep the funds going."

The Christian movement’s leaders are discussing how to sustain the momentum and growth spurred in the campaign against gay marriage. They agree that one issue is not enough to fuel a long-term movement. But they disagree on how to carry the momentum of the marriage campaign into other socially conservative issues like euthanasia and polygamy.